BRISTOL, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — Bucks County authorities said on Wednesday that they’ve solved the 1962 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in the Bristol Borough Church.
Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn called the rape and murder of Carol Ann Dougherty one of the worst cold cases out of the Philadelphia region, and one of the worst the country has ever seen.
Authorities said Dougherty was murdered on Oct. 22, 1962, as she rode her bike to meet her friends at the Bristol Borough Library.
“Went into Tommy's cafe. And again, a heartbreaking fact that she got a coke and penny candy,” said Schorn. “I mean, could there be anything more innocent?”
Dougherty was last seen outside St. Mark’s Church. When she didn’t come home for dinner, her family went looking for her, and her father found her body in the choir loft of the church. Police determined she had been raped and strangled.
Schorn described the evidence and the challenges investigators faced in 1963, laid out in a 53-page grand jury report that found William Schrader was the killer.
Schrader was reported by a witness at the time to be outside the church around the time of the murder. He was questioned by police, provided a hair sample and failed a polygraph test, but fled to Florida not long after coming onto the police’s radar. Schrader would live in Florida and Texas before settling in Houma, Louisiana
In that time, he also built a lengthy criminal record and a long history of sexual violence against young women and girls. In 1985, he was convicted in Louisiana in the death of 12-year-old Catherine Smith after he intentionally set fire to his house, knowing she and other family members were inside. Further investigation also found Schrader to have sexually abused his own daughter and granddaughters, and two adult women with cognitive disabilities.
“We know that William Schrader's history of sexually violating little girls. It's the likes I have never seen, as a career child abuse prosecutor,” said Schorn.
Authorities said a final break in the case came when they interviewed Schrader’s stepson, who told them he had said before he died that he murdered a little girl in a Pennsylvania church.
Carol Ann’s sister Kay Dougherty said her sister’s murder haunted her family for decades, but thanked everyone who kept her memory alive.
“We can finally let her rest in peace, knowing that her story has been told, her truth revealed, and her memory honored,” she said.